New York Democrat Governor Andrew Cuomo’s upstate “economic development” initiatives looked fishy from the start, with people questioning spending millions in tax dollars on projects like a rarely used state-run movie studio and a comedy club hours away from major cities.
Now, the numbers have been crunched – and Andrew Cuomo’s upstate economic development has been revealed as an complete failure.
Crain’s New York Business calls it Andrew Cuomo’s “subsidy sinkhole” and writes that, “as the governor prepares to run for re-election, his upstate revival has stalled and the worst performance is in the place he has spent the most money—Buffalo.”
“The Federal Reserve Bank of New York has crunched the numbers in a report issued earlier this month. Since early in 2016, the report said, upstate job growth has been a “paltry 0.3%,” which is half the rate of the previous four years. Buffalo, where the governor has poured $1 billion into the economy, saw virtually no increase. Rochester, the second-largest upstate economy, has lost jobs over the past year and a half.”
The New York Post editorial board explains exactly why Cuomo’s economic development has been so catastrophically bad – it was all about politics, not jobs.
“It’s all about the ribbon-cutting. That seems to be Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s approach to upstate’s economy.”
Andrew Cuomo has wasted billions in taxpayer dollars to help his political career – he doesn’t deserve another term.
New York Post: Cuomo's Collapsing High-Tech Upstate Dreams
It’s all about the ribbon-cutting. That seems to be Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s approach to upstate’s economy — and he made sure he was front and center for Tuesday’s photo op at a Plattsburgh plant opening.
Too bad upstate’s job growth, which crept along at just half the nation’s rate for the first few years of Cuomo’s term, came to a near-total halt in 2016. Even as he has thrown billions at upstate businesses.
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No wonder the region’s job growth has stalled, as two New York Fed analysts noted. After posting 0.6 percent yearly gains in the run-up to 2016 (less than half the nation’s 1.6 percent rate), upstate jobs expanded at just 0.3 percent that year.
At the same time, Cuomo has actively sapped job growth upstate with his fracking ban, minimum-wage hikes and other hits.
All in all, some pretty pricey ribbons.
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